Slashdot Mirror
Suit To Let Researchers Break Website Rules Wins a Round (axios.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Anyone following Facebook's recent woes with Cambridge Analytica might be surprised to hear that there's a civil liberties argument for swiping data from websites, even while violating their terms of service. In fact, there's a whole world of situations where that thinking could apply: bona fide academic research. On Friday, a judge in a D.C. federal court ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union-backed case trying to guarantee researchers the ability to break sites' rules without being arrested could move forward, denying a federal motion to dismiss. "What we're talking about here is research in the public interest, finding out if there is discrimination," Esha Bhandari, an ACLU attorney representing the academics, told Axios.
just about anything if you start with 'in the public interest' and 'finding out if there is discrimination'. Also. Can people just use 'unjust discrimination' instead? Discrimination is what we do as human beings. We can't function without it. (sorry. Pet Peave).
An algorithm cares about is nothing but whether it's profitable. Rest assured it will be biased. Why? Because of exactly that. All it takes is that some algorithm determines that $minority as a group has a higher chance of destroying something, not paying rent or generally being something you don't want as a landlord. And there you go.
This is near certain. Yes, that's unfair. Algorithms don't care about fairness, though. They "care" (strange word with computers. Or corporations for that matter...) about profit.
Just like I was really pissed when I was 23 and needed to rent a car and they only would've given me one if I paid through the nose. That's ageism! Or an algorithm telling them that young people tend to have more accidents.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This suit is over whether breaking a site's TOS consittutes a criminal offense under the CFAA, notably 18 USC 1030(a)(4-6).
There is a circuit split on this issue, which this suit attempts to clarify.
This suit does not have any impact on civil or contractual suits researches might face for breaking TOS, only whether doing so is a federal criminal offense under this specific law.
That's what I did. Worked pretty well so far.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You don't own data about you. Too bad and all, but that's the state of affairs.
_If_ Cambridge did anything wrong, the victim was facebook. Who's valuable dataset was accessed without sufficient payment in cash and/or influence.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If you don't want your personal data to be grabbed, don't put it in a place that is publicly accessible...like Facebook.
It's one thing to rip off info from your account on Amazon, where you enter it merely to find and purchase products. That's is wrong.
But if you post personal info to Facebook or other social media sites and leave it marked Public, let alone take part in surveys, etc. then that data is fair game no matter what the website hosts says.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Is this not the same argument used by doctors and governments throughout time for medical experimentation on prisoners and people who don't know they are being experimented on? Why would the ACLU of all organizations not see this?
This isn't about 'stealing your data'.
This is about being able to create fake accounts for the purposes of researching if people react differently to a person based on information from a profile (specifically, the information which falls under 'protected status' like race).
The ACLU and research companies can't get your data unless you put it out there publicly. It's not like they are asking for permission to haxorz the facebook dbz.
If you put your data out there on the street you shouldn't go crying when someone picks it up and does something with it.
I don't see in the actual lawsuit anything about swiping collected data, nor is the suit suggesting accessing website data other than through the normal access a person typing at a keyboard using the site in a normal way would do. In other words, it isn't about mass data grabbing from servers behind the web site.
What the complaint is covering is very narrowly defined behavior.
Here is the actual ACLU Sandvig v. Lynch - Complaint
https://www.aclu.org/legal-doc...
It's about violating TOS access to websites that forbid using dummy accounts, bots to do testing, scraping (saving screenshots in this case), or violating TOS with non-disparagement clauses.
The complaint says that on-line access that may violate a TOS should not be covered under the CFAA, and that the penalties are far too harsh.
Here's what they're talking about: Researchers want use dummy accounts with the names of people that appear to be some minority group, so that they can see if that group is being discriminated against. As an example, AirBNB, VRBO and such like are prime examples of where that sort of discrimination is in play. Many sites require real names, and non-disparagement clauses would obviously be violated if the research turned up anything.
I especially object to non-disparagement clauses in sites that have an open interface to the public, and although I think that requiring real names is a valid stipulation to use a website, I cannot support that using an alias is a criminal act. The website has the option of cancelling your account if they don't like you much in the same way that the mall can kick you out for not wearing shoes.
You can avoid social media if you want--it won't stop the companies from harvesting and selling your data. If you vote, pay taxes, own property, have a bank account, use a phone, you'll be tracked anyways. And if you have friends (or enemies), nothing stops them from posting your info.
TFA notes this as well. This is an area where I say the ACLU is wrong, if their cause has a good case then they can make an arrangement with the service provider rather they flaunt a right to 'break the rules'.
You should read the news from the original ACLU one. Slashdot shouldn't use the current link to a blogger anyway...
Because the intent is different. The intent here is social justice so the law shouldn't be allowed to be used against that.
Fine .. then every single purveyor of data, their family, their children, their grandchildren, and friends ... should be entirely and thoroughly doxxed. Throw in any lawmaker who has ever voted against data privacy, and their families as well.
Let's level that fucking playing field, and stop pretending that rich assholes like Zuckerfuck get privacy and we don't.
Let's take this shit to its logical conclusion, and go scorched earth on the people who want to sell our data ... and then let's see what side of privacy they come down on.
Because these lying sacks of shit will all claim that is different. Fuck 'em all.
vote, pay taxes, own property,
Public Data
bank account
Private. Penalties should exist.
use a phone
Hmm...mixed. Public airwaves. Almost like a CB Radio.
Deliberate legislation required if it doesn't already exist.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The summary is terrible, the short version of the argument is that private companies shouldn't be able to write overbearing ToS and turn violations into a federal felony under the CFAA. The only thing it does is to make it so private companies can't attack people with felonies over some stupid ToS on their website. They could still go after you at the civil (but not criminal) level for damages related to any breach of your agreements, the main difference is that they can't get you thrown into jail for violating some nonsense they wrote on their web page this way.
If you want to defend privacy, it's better to get actual privacy laws so that the hundred thousand other companies who misused the Facebook friends API to suck in your social graph can't misuse it. Yes, I realize the only thing that CA did wrong was to break Facebook's ToS, but making that into a federal felony is a bad idea because a ton of you have likely broken their ToS in some trivial way don't belong in prison. I mean, they're especially after disparagement clauses. Would you like for everyone with a Facebook account to be forced, under pain of federal felony charges, to not be able to say bad things about Facebook any more?
Because that's the kind of crap you're asking for if you defend this use of the CFAA.
Aaron Swartz but we need an PD willing so stand up to long case with EULAs as the contracts and no 100K+ bails